Forum:Netherlands subdivisions
Category:Netherlands User:Rtol has progressed the genealogy of the Netherlands to the stage of having "Born in" categories that are linked from Wikipedia. Seems to me it's time to have our own pages for the dozen provinces and maybe even as many of the 400-odd municipalities. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 23:35, 19 January 2009 (UTC) Wikipedia pages worth noting *Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Naming conventions *Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Naming conventions (settlements) *Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Resolving placename conflicts *Wikipedia:Wikipedia:WikiProject_Dutch_municipalities — Robin Patterson (Talk) 23:35, 19 January 2009 (UTC) Place page names Some of us like to have the country name added to all place page names. Wikipedia generally doesn't include it unless there is ambiguity. Copying from Wikipedia is much easier if we use exactly the same page names. Any opinions? — Robin Patterson (Talk) 23:35, 19 January 2009 (UTC) Over-detailed pagenames I see we have some long-winded page names, some contributed by AMK152. They make for far too much work (to change them everywhere) when copying from Wikipedia (which we do a lot) and linking to them ourselves. As I have said elsewhere, many months ago, there is no very good reason to depart from Wikipedia pagenames in most cases. They are unique and technically unambiguous. Anyone who wants to know which province, country, or continent a place is in can read the first few lines of the article. If it is not in those lines, it should be. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 15:30, 26 January 2009 (UTC) Page structure We can copy Wikipedia's pages exactly at first, as has been done for most English-speaking places that we have. Infoboxes would then want more emphasis on genealogical matters and less on current political leaders and highest points, for example. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 23:35, 19 January 2009 (UTC) "County" series of pages We already have such pages (particularly categories using templates, such as Template:b-uk, and the main navigation boxes, such as Template:Navbox county-uk) for other countries in Europe. Easy to extend to Netherlands provinces and municipalities. Desirable to sort out the naming conventions first. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 23:35, 19 January 2009 (UTC) :Naming should not be an issue in the Netherlands. I suggest that we stick to the current English name, which in most cases is equal to the Dutch name anyway.Rtol 21:54, 25 January 2009 (UTC) Historical subdivisions ?? — Robin Patterson (Talk) 23:35, 19 January 2009 (UTC) :There is an issue here. The provinces are relatively stable, but the municipalities are constantly reorganized. I would therefore keep a list of current municipalities per province, and add previous municipalities under those. For example: :Schermer :contains Oterleek :Regions are another issue. Provinces are bureaucratic constructs, and people are neutral towards their province. People are passionate about their region. For example, Schermer is a municipality of North Holland, but Oterleek is a village of West Frisia -- and the latter matters to identity and the stories of old. :Rtol 21:54, 25 January 2009 (UTC) ::I guess your definition of "region" will become clear as we progress. Whatever it is, it will be fine for categories as long as each region is in the matching categories for at least one larger official area that includes it. Where there is overlap (just as for boundary changes), we try to add cross-references near the top of articles and categories. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 15:30, 26 January 2009 (UTC) Current practice The current practice is as follows. * Birth, marriage, and death are registered by hamlet, village, town, or city. * The name of the place is a single name, unless there is the potential of confusion. Potential ambiguity is solved between brackets. Amsterdam is therefore Amsterdam, while Zwijndrecht is Zwijndrecht (NL) and Utrecht is Utrecht (city). * There are three templates ** to create a category Born in .. ** to create a category Married in .. ** to create a category Died in .. * There are three levels of categorization: People are Born in Amsterdam, which is a subcategory of Born in North Holland, which is a subcategory of Born in the Netherlands. * Pages about places are categorized as follows: ** Category: Placename ** Category: Municipality ** Category: Region (optional) ** Category: Province * Pages about provinces have a list of municipalities (single ident) and the villages that are in those municipalities (double ident). * Some provinces also have a list of regions. Municipalities are placed in those regions by way of superscripts, and through the categorization above. This practice has now been implemented for Gelderland, North Holland, and South Holland. These are the only three provinces with a significant number of pages at the moment. It would be a shame if new provinces would follow a different practice. Rtol 07:29, 22 March 2009 (UTC)